Growing all in

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Henry Samueli still is losing money on the Ducks to the tune of millions that stretch into eight figures. Even billionaires with the most robust of financial portfolios give pause to that amount of red ink.

But as he sits in a conference room at Honda Center, the arena his management company runs, Samueli is at ease with where the team he owns sits in the present and beams with hope for the future of the NHL franchise.

The goal is to turn owning the Ducks into a break-even proposition – even as the value of the franchise continues to rise. In 2012, Forbes estimated that Ducks' worth at $192
million, which is $117 million more than what Samueli and his wife paid for the team in 2005.

Make no mistake, the co-founder of Irvine-based semiconductor company Broadcom is in good shape financially. Samueli is on the most recent Forbes magazine list of richest Americans (reportedly worth of $1.7 billion).

But Samueli isn't sitting on his fortune. The latest evidence of his continued investment in keeping the Ducks and their 20-year-old arena as a viable entity going forward is plainly visible.

The finishing touches are being applied to the $20 million Grand Terrace expansion project, and it is on track for an official christening at the Ducks' home opener tonight against the New York Rangers. And the usually low-key Samueli is beaming.

“I think the fans are going to love the Grand Terrace,” Samueli said in an interview with the Register. “It creates a whole new destination experience for people to be here before the game. After the game. During intermission.

“We're excited about the upgrade.”

The addition to Honda Center didn't bring the NBA team that Samueli covets, but that is just one reason why it was built. As the Ducks celebrate their 20th anniversary, Samueli is banking on many factors that will keep the Ducks as an Orange County institution for generations.

His plan for the future starts from the ground up. Upon taking over ownership from the Walt Disney Co., Samueli began to look at the grass-roots level and it involved a lot more than renaming the Ducks' practice facility Anaheim Ice.

To make further inroads into the Southern California hockey community, the Ducks looked at the Dallas Stars as their model. The Stars built ice rinks in and around the Dallas Metroplex and now own and operate six facilities.

Officials with the Stars and Ducks ultimately met and compared notes about building a sport in places where hockey isn't woven into the region's fabric.

“They had the big picture of wanting to grow the sport and Dallas had done a nice job of doing that,” said Art Trottier, vice president of The Rinks. “So we kind of wanted to mirror ourselves after that.”

The Ducks altered their approach to arrive at the same idea. Starting with the Anaheim facility, the team has steadily purchased and refurbished existing rinks in Orange County and is starting to make inroads beyond.

The centerpiece of their efforts is The Rinks program, and the Ducks now operate ice sheets in Anaheim, Westminster, Yorba Linda and Lakewood along with in-line roller hockey rinks in Corona, Huntington Beach and Irvine. A new Irvine ice facility in the Great Park remains in the planning stages.

It has allowed the club to greatly expand its reach into the youth levels. Trottier said there were nine age-group teams that made up the Junior Ducks programs when he arrived in 1996. Now the growth has become exponential.

Nearly 320 teams from the 8-and-under to the 18-and-under levels compete in either ice or roller hockey at the seven facilities between the fall/winter and spring seasons. Approximately 4,000 kids are involved, according to numbers Trottier provided.

The youth participation numbers don't include the adult level, which has mushroomed to nearly 500 teams and more than 5,600 players.

“We were always just concerned about growing hockey just in our building,” Trottier said. “So it kind of opened our eyes to say, ‘Hey, we've got to make sure it grows in other buildings or it's not going to be successful.'

“As an arena and as management, we took a different approach. We need to help everybody else and try and grow.”

Some rinks were either closed (Westminster) or struggling (Lakewood). Trottier said the fear was that if area skating facilities were closing, interest in hockey would eventually fade.

The problem now is there aren't enough ice sheets to meet an increasing demand and the ever-expanding Anaheim Ducks High School League is the cause of that.

Funded in large part by the Ducks, the league has doubled in size from 14 to 28 teams for this season after starting out with one – JSerra – in 2008. And the games at Anaheim Ice often have the feel of a Friday night under the lights, with cheerleaders and stands that are often filled.

Trottier grew up playing for his high school in his native Michigan and vividly remembers “when we played (it was) in front of 1,500 people every night.” To him, the experience of representing your school colors is something that can't be replicated.

“I'll never forget that first game of high school hockey (for the league),” he said. “This mom, she came up to me in tears and gave me a hug. I'm going, ‘What's wrong?' She goes, ‘This is what my son's dreamed of, playing for his high school.'

“That kind of hit it off for me. This is working. It's expanded. It's the talk of Southern California hockey.”

There are other efforts the Ducks make to introduce youngsters to the sport. Their Learn to Play program that offers free four-week instruction has had 2,000 new participants over the past two years and their S.C.O.R.E. (Scholastic Curriculum of Recreation & Education) now reaches 40,000 fifth-grade students across Southern California each year.

Samueli wouldn't say how much money he has pumped into the rinks and youth programs, but Trottier said it's an “easy seven figures” and perhaps much more. Craig Johnson, Santa Margarita High's coach, is among those who say the league wouldn't be where it is without the owner's backing.

The vision is that these high schoolers will one day become fans and potential season-ticket holders.

“It's very important for the community,” said Johnson, a former Ducks and Kings player. “These little hockey players are going to be your future season-ticket holders … to support the Ducks … to bring people into the game. The more people you get into the game, the more exciting it becomes. The people see it, they love it and they want to come back.

“It's not a traditional sport out here. So you have to be proactive in recruiting kids into the sport. And they've done a fabulous job with that.”

There is no question Samueli wants the Ducks to be able to balance their books, and he was among the owners who pushed for a more favorable collective bargaining agreement that needed a 119-day lockout last season to secure. The new CBA also allows them to receive revenue sharing for the first time.

But the UCLA graduate and Corona del Mar resident bought the franchise to keep it in local hands and remove any question that it would stay in Orange County. It remains an investment that he hopes to keep within the family for a long time.

“We're not doing this purely as a business,” Samueli said. “I have a very successful business that I'm involved in at Broadcom that pays the bills. And the Ducks is just part of our give-back to the community.”

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